I cannot believe it but today was my official due date for Tatum. The last 5 weeks have been the most amazing, fun, loving, beautiful and difficult of my entire life. Tatum has brought so much joy and happiness to Rich and I and I still can't believe we were blessed with her 5 weeks early. I have been depressed off and on during the last 5 weeks just because of normal baby blues but I was also incredibly sad that I was robbed of the part of my pregnancy. I wanted to have that last part to feel uncomfortable, to feel the rush of going into labor and having to get to the hospital quickly. I wanted to have the last part to feel pampered, get her room ready, wash all her clothes, do the final shopping for everything she needed and then just relax before she came. Instead I was thrown into an induction situation, my body wasn't ready for it so I had a c section and my baby spent her first 11 days of life in a hospital without her Mom and Dad tending to her every need. The nurses did that for her. I could only help take care of her when I would get there in the morning until I would go back to my room or go home. I missed out on that instant bonding with my baby girl and being able to breastfeed her from the beginning. Instead she was on a feeding tube and had to be on constant oxygen. It was very difficult to see my precious baby hooked up to all those monitors and not be able to do anything about it. I wanted to hold her whenever I wanted but I couldn't. There were only "special" times that we were allowed to do so. It was incredibly hard. You wait this entire pregnancy and all you want to do is hold your baby and you are not allowed to. It was such a hard, devastating time but we made it through. She was and is incredibly strong and was determined to get out of there. She called all the shots. She pulled her first cpap off, pulled her oxygen tubes out, and finally her feeding tubes. She did everything in her time, just as she came early in her time.
Even though I feel that those 5 weeks were stolen from me and although everything I mentioned was incredibly difficult for me, we were blessed to have this incredible baby 5 weeks early! We got this awesome gift early! Those extra 5 weeks of her life were given to us. It has been a truly amazing journey so far and so much has happened in the last 5 weeks. We love this baby more then we could ever have known. She has changed my life forever in so many fantastic ways. I hope I can be the best Mom to her that I can possibly be and give her the most beautiful, love filled, fantastic life that she can possibly have. I love her more then anything and I cannot wait to see what this beautiful, little girl has in store for us. She has taught me so much already in her short time here. She definitely has taught me that I need to go with the flow more and that life doesn't go according to the way you think it will. She has taught me to have patience and that I would do absolutely anything for her. She is my entire world and she has made me whole. I cannot imagine my life and this world without her in it now. I am the most blessed woman in the entire world that I was given the chance to Mother this beautiful, amazing baby girl and to have this much love in my life. How did I get so lucky???
The one really cool thing that happened was last night we had our first 4 hour stretch of sleep!! She has only been sleeping in 2-3 hour increments so to have 4 hours in a row was wonderful! We can't wait for even longer stretches! Go Tatum Go!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment